White Chocolate and Cherry Cupcakes

Apart from looking crazy patriotic, these cupcakes are beyond deliciously yum.

Breakfast at Chin Mee Chin would invariably include a cherry cupcake... full of fake glace cherries and suspiciously non-dairy butter. Cheap, but tasty.

This is a much more upmarket take on an old childhood favourite. A rich buttery cake, dotted with juicy cherries and topped off with a decadent white chocolate buttercream frosting.

Cherry Cupcakes:

• 60g unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
• 65g caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 100g plain flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 30 ml syrup from canned cherries
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup canned cherries, quartered

White Chocolate Frosting:

• 60 white chocolate, finely chopped if not using buttons or chips
• 100g icing sugar, sifted
• 30ml milk
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 80g unsalted butter, softened
• Pinch of salt
• 3 drops red food colouring

Preheat oven to 190C and line 6 muffin cups with paper liners.

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating until smooth. Beat in the vanilla, then add the flour mixture and milk and beat till smooth. Gently fold in the cherries.

Fill each cup till 3/4 full. Bake for about 16-20 minutes. A skewer inserted into a cupcake should come out clean. Let the cupcakes cool completely while you make the icing.

Melt the white chocolate in a metal bowl over gently simmering water. Stir until smooth and let cool to room temperature.

Sift the icing sugar into a medium bowl. Stir in the milk and vanilla. Add the butter and salt and beat until smooth. Stir in the cooled white chocolate. Tint half the frosting with the red food colouring for a bright red colour, and leave the other half white.

Spoon the red icing into a piping bag with a star tip, and white icing into a bag with a round tip and refrigerate for 30 minutes until firm enough to frost.

Pipe little red stars on half of each cupcake, and little round circles on the other half.

Happy National Day!

Other items on the Red, White and Ooohhh menu:

• Grilled red pepper and sundried tomato pasta
• Mozzarella and cherry tomato salad
• Boeuf bourguignon with mashed potatoes
• Red rubies in coconut milk
• Raspberry macarons with a buttercream filling
• Cream scones with homemade raspberry preserves and freshly made whipped cream